


Madness; Not Sadness

by TheShipDen



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Cursing bc its Gavin fucking reed, Deviant Upgraded Connor | RK900, Don't be surprised, Gavin Reed Needs a Hug, Hurt Gavin Reed, I mean ya'll know who we're talking about, Insults, M/M, Masochist Gavin Reed, Nosebleed, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Soft Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Has a Different Name, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Is Bad at Feelings, Upgraded Connor | RK900 is In Denial About Deviancy, cmon now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 05:37:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18046523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShipDen/pseuds/TheShipDen
Summary: “What are you doing.” An arm curls around his shoulders, tentative strokes down his clothed arm. Awkward and reserved.“Comforting you,” is the response. It’s really not grand, not spoken in pure love or anything, but it’s enough. Enough to melt Gavin’s heart and make him feel just the tiniest bit secure.“You’re pretty shit at it.” Nines huffs, and he doesn’t need to look to know he’s getting glared at. “That’s alright though, I’m pretty shit at it too.





	Madness; Not Sadness

**Author's Note:**

> just a lil smth I wrote for no damn real reason???
> 
> idk I haven't written a sorta hello stern nines or too much of emotions gavin
> 
> which is WACk and now I'm compensating for it

Gavin felt bad. 

 

And not something he could fucking spell out, not something that was as easy to put together like a B and E. This wasn’t something he could pinpoint the source to, couldn’t tell up from down, or when and where it had started and would end. No, he couldn’t tell anyone any of that. And it pissed him right off. 

 

He’s had bouts of depressive episodes before, had countless anxiety attacks, late nights of surging insomnia, and even the intrusive thoughts that tried to permanently bring him down. 

 

He knows those things, knows them well. And as much, as often, as they greeted him he understands that this sort of feeling doesn’t tie into any of those. It’s not enough to fall under one of them, but not just entirely nothing either. He’s not okay and he doesn’t know _why._

 

He’s angry; at the world engulfing him, the people who pass him by, at himself mostly, and any other thing within existence. He doesn’t want to be so frustrated, but he can’t help it. Besides the boiling under his skin, he doesn’t feel anything else. And that only adds more fuel to the fire. 

 

The feeling stays with him and sours his moods, worsens his bad days and brings down the good ones. And no matter what he tries or who he talks to or what he does different, it stays. It shrouds him, hangs over his head like a dark fucking cloud and makes everything darker, dimmer, blacker. The only other color is red- from his anger, his rage, the one he wishes would disappear and leave him be but never does. 

 

It’s so stupid, entirely dumb. Idiotic. But it’s pressing, you see, so very pressing and it buzzes inside his skull. It’s not like the whispers of depreciation inside his head either, no, Gavin would rather those. Because they fill the silence up. 

 

It’s the fact that he lays awake and stares at his pillow, lost, confused, and irate for a reason he cannot name. He’s had these sorts of experiences before but never as severe, and he doesn’t know how to get himself out. 

 

It’s scary. And he’s alone. 

 

The longer the feeling stays, the not-okayness of it all, the more angry he is. The more desperate he is to feel any other fucking thing. 

 

Gavin itches for a fight. 

 

Not a verbal one, though he wouldn’t mind, but a real one. With fights and nosebleeds, with black eyes and black outs. The kind that he has to break up because they’re so violent, the ones where he has to detain someone because they’re so off their rocker it’s unsafe for the public. It’s wrong of him, _he knows that._ It’s so very wrong of him, especially as an officer of the law, to crave something so horrid. 

 

But it makes him focus on something beside the wrongness. Something that isn’t the void inside his head. 

 

He _likes_ the bruises. 

 

He likes the black, the blue, the purple and yellow. He likes the fiery red across his knuckles and sketched onto his face. He doesn’t like the scars, not really, but at this point he grows to not mind. Sometimes the marks attract attention, but the only type of attention that’s soft is from the eyes of the public. They think he’s done something worthy to earn them, something righteous in their favor- in the good of the city. And mostly, he does. That’s why he has so many scars to begin with, or more so, that’s why he has so many bullet ones. But when a citizen looks at him with the patches and the gauze and the bandages, sometimes they smile. Sometimes they talk to him and thank him, offer him things and validate him. 

 

In the end, it’s the commendment that intoxicates him. Drugs him into repeats and relapses. Because he doesn’t have any other outlet like that, and sometimes when eyes fall on him with respect and such a deep rooted kindness- _fuck._

 

It makes the blackness go away. It makes him feel like he isn’t so big of a waste. Helps him breathe evenly again after months of suffocation. 

 

So maybe, just maybe, that’s why he walks in the bad part of town. The sector of the city that hates cops and does dirty crimes.

 

Maybe he lets his badge flash openly on his hip as he walks the streets and turns into an alleyway he knows harbors criminals inside of it. 

 

And maybe, only maybe, does he let himself get jumped. 

 

He lets these strangers throw him on the ground, relishes in how hard they stomp onto his ribs and how many punches they throw at his face. He likes the seconds of agony, of the moments spent on thoughts besides how he feels and how shitty of a person he is. He likes how his knuckles sounds and feels against a wall or someone’s cheek, how hard nails scratch at him and how his adrenaline covers it all up. Puts everything up in a pretty bow for him. 

 

He feels alive again, feels like himself just a bit more. And it feels _nice._

 

It feels nice, even if there’s a trickle of blood dripping down his nose and chin. It feels nice even if he tastes it inside his mouth, when his tongue darts out and licks his split lip. It’s lovely, how when he moves his arms or twists himself one way his chest protests with a deep ache. For a beat he’s satisfied, because he’ll feel this in weeks to come, might get another old lady to hold his hands inside her own and tell him a story of dark bruises her husband received doing some yard work. 

 

But it all comes to a halt way too soon and it makes him feel nothing again. Nothing but anger and an unwelcome shame. 

 

Gavin hates it, hates whoever interrupted this, but he’s helped to his feet and rushed somewhere else. 

 

From the cut to his brow that has bled thoroughly enough to coat his blackened eye and encrust it shut, he sees white. Flashes of black every now and then, but mostly white. A hint of red, just the smallest touch really, and some pale face hovering before his own. 

 

“Detective, are you alright?” The voice chimes, hands bracing him by his shoulders as Gavin muddles through the thick mud inside his brain. “What happened?”

 

He can make out who it is inside his delirious state, pushes the hands off of him and steps back. He hadn’t expected to run into anyone he knew, hadn’t accounted for someone to fucking see him at this damn low point. “Phckin’ fine, tin can. Beat it.”

 

“You have several injuries that require direct medical atten-“

 

“I said fuck off!” He yells, despite it all. Gavin doesn’t understand why he does the things he does, why he screams and shouts the venomous words that he thinks up, but he knows he can’t stop it. And something hurts, something from deep inside, he doesn’t like it. Not at all. “Run back to CyberLife you robobitch and quit pestering me!”

 

The RK stalls for a moment, and Gavin might just think he’s going to get knocked the fuck out. Like Connor had done to him, but this time probably a worse version of it. Gavin’s not stupid, not by much anyway, and he knows how strong Nines is. Debates that it might just be the thing he wants to happen and it strengthens his glare. 

 

“No.” Is all the android says- _dark,_ too. There’s nothing nice about it, the fucking heated look of his own is enough for Gavin to straighten up a bit. And he flinches when the RK’s hand comes towards him. 

 

It wasn’t the punch that he was expecting, not even a punch at all. Because Nines hadn’t punched him. He grabbed Gavin, roughly sure, and dragged his sorry ass somewhere. Some building, Gavin wasn’t paying much attention. He was wrapped up in how the world tilted just a little to the right and then swerved left, how when he was pulled along a corner, he felt the entire planet rocket sideways. He stared at the ground, concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, and almost fucking died on the steps. 

 

He hadn’t even registered the arm around his shoulders, how it dropped to his waist halfway through, how close he was pressed into his partner’s side. He stumbles through a doorway, not that he’s entirely too aware of where he is, and when everything stops rotating in tandem- he finds he’s inside some place. 

 

Nines has his face in his hands, gripping gently enough not to aggravate the wells of color already rising along the detective’s face but sternly enough that Gavin doesn’t retch away from it. He feels that lostness overcome him again, in strong waves. 

 

Before he knows better he’s angry again, with no explanation, with no reason- it’s _infuriating._

 

Some of him wishes Nines wasn’t so gentle with him, some of him begs for the android to make more blood spray from his abused nose. But the android just looks him over, dabbing a soft tissue under the open crimson river and probably is scanning the rest of him. 

 

Gavin doesn’t deserve the treatment, he knows that, too. 

 

His hands bunch into fists, clinging to his jeans and suddenly the frustration is so overwhelming. It’s blocking his airways and creating a cement block on his chest. He feels it spread like a damn disease into each and every one of his limbs, the small sting from the various beatings pushing him over that fucking edge. The one he wanted to avoid, especially now, standing in front of the motherfucker who proclaimed to be better then Gavin himself. 

 

Nines was a haughty bastard, spoke his mind often, but it could be amusing sometimes. 

 

He grabbed at Nines’ wrist, held it and recoiled away from the very light tough. The LED flared red, cooled just barely, and the RK didn’t move to continue- not yet, anyway. 

 

“Did that hurt?”

 

Gavin closes his eyes, wills the tears that threaten him away, and heaves in a loud inhale. He swallows, chews his lip and hisses at the fresh metallic taste that floods his tongue. 

 

“Detective Reed?” Words sure felt like a punch, like a knife piercing into his frame and jerking this way and that. In a way, Gavin thought that it’d feel better then the emotional manipulation trapped inside his veins. He hates this. Hates being exposed like this. 

 

There’s nowhere for him to run to, to hide from, because Nines has seen it all. 

 

His chin is tilted up and on reflex, his eyes open. He doesn’t mean to meet the android’s curious gaze but he does. Gavin hates how easily sprung his tears are, as unshed as they are. The flash of sympathy, of concern, is too much to bear 

 

“Can’t you just shut your fuckin’ mouth for a goddamn second?” He says it softer then he intends, shakier and grosser then he means. 

 

His breath hitches and he pulls away again, a loose hiccup leaving his throat before he covers his mouth. Warmth trails down his cheeks and he’s confused, touching it and finding water. Finding those tears he thought he managed to bottle. He’s embarrassed, ashamed, and so very mad at the prospect that he’s crying. 

 

“Detective?” Nines sounds so utterly lost, so fucking bewildered and it’s laughable. It’s hilarious, because the bastard only ever sounded confident and smug before. It’s too much of an accuracy how Gavin can fuck shit up for other people. “I- “

 

 _“Don’t,”_ He gasps between choppy sniffles. “Just-…just don’t, Nines.” 

 

His partner seems to mull something over, walking away and Gavin’s shoulders tremble with how hard he’s trying to keep his sobs quiet. The anger seems to collect inside his cries, his tears, and jet over his skin like they’re running from outside of him. The tension lessens, the irritation snuffs itself out and he can only try and reel it all in before he’s made too big of a bitch of himself. 

 

Nines returns, a warm cloth inside his hand and he resumes his earlier actions. Gavin sees his brows furrow and he tries to bat the android’s hand away from him. But Nines, this time, doesn’t let him. He has to physically try to fight against him and only ends up failing. It’s clear he won’t be getting his way so he huffs, sucking up as much self-esteem as he could and lets Nines do as he pleases. 

 

The rag passes, tender and mild, over the cut on his face and Gavin does hiss at the nagging sting. Nines pauses, looks at the encrusted and swollen eye the human ‘proudly' shines and frowns. “This will be a pain, unfortunately. Please, bear with me and I do apology in advance.”

 

“Whatever.” Either his partner knows that’s the best answer he’s going to receive or he doesn’t care on what Gavin’s response will be. 

 

It’s slow going, and while Nines is as firmly determined to clean him up, Gavin can’t stop the endless wave of tears. He’s not crying, he refuses to say it, and he’ll deny it and take it to his grave if presented the chance. But the RK is patient, lets up on the strokes when Gavin fidgets too much and rubs a pattern onto his scalp when his back tightens up and arches like a pressed bow. 

 

Never in his life would he have considered this an outcome, that he’d be taken care of by an android. 

 

Out of spite, he wipes his eyes and suppresses the new current of water that tries to escape. He knows he can’t hide it all, can’t hide the fucking mess he is anymore, but he tries to. 

 

“Are you not sad anymore?” Nines asks with a cocked head, brushing the pad of his thumb over the slice inside the human’s lip. 

 

“Never was,” He grumbles. 

 

“But you were crying.” There’s no accusation in the RK’s voice, just blatantly facts- as if he was relaying a report. Maybe that’s why Gavin didn’t snap at him, just a report. Not his life. Just an instance, not forever. 

 

“I’m frustrated asshole.” He was going to hide his face inside the crook of his jacket, was going to prop the hood up and cover his face. But Nines was quicker. 

 

And a lot closer. Out of nowhere. 

 

He takes in a breath, but there’s not an invasion of space as he expected. The RK looks the most confused he’s ever been and he can’t help but to laugh at it, the sound bitter to even his own ears. 

 

“But, you were crying.” The android repeats, LED a convulsive yellow. 

 

“Yeah, just means I’m really pissy.” 

 

Nines hums, a soft: “Oh.” leaving his lips before he offers an ice pack- whenever the crazy bitch had gotten that. And Gavin takes it, because he thinks the robobitch might just shove it in his face if he didn’t. He presses it into his eye, sighs at the feeling of the biting chill and he feels that numbness take over. He’ll certainly have something to feel in the morning, that was fucking assured. 

 

“I will get you some painkillers in the morning.”

 

“Can do that myself.” 

 

“You can, but you won’t.” It’s not a threat and Nines doesn’t even say it like one. Just with a sternness to it that Gavin doesn’t have the energy to fight against. He slumps on the couch, which he now identifies, and complains to himself in his head. 

 

Nines brings him some water, sits next to him, and doesn’t say a word afterwards. Gavin appreciates it because that sinking feeling in his chest just starts to hallow out and unlatch it’s talons from within him. The RK’s elbows brush against him, after a few minutes pass, he feels a leg beside his own. Then a head resting on the crown of his hair, and he convinces himself he’s mad about it, works up this entire speech in his head about how he hates the contact and how he’s gonna let the android have it. 

 

“What are you doing.” Is what comes out instead, and he collapses against his partner’s side. An arm curls around his shoulders, tentative strokes down his clothed arm. Awkward and reserved. 

 

“Comforting you,” is the response. It’s really not grand, not spoken in pure love or anything, but it’s enough. Enough to melt Gavin’s heart and make him feel just the tiniest bit secure. 

 

“You’re pretty shit at it.” Nines huffs, and he doesn’t need to look to know he’s getting glared at. “That’s alright though, I’m pretty shit at it too. 

 

Gavin felt bad, sure. But somehow, sitting in the company of his partner, listening to the city they’ve both sworn to protect, he felt a little lighter. His head was a little clearer and things didn’t seem entirely unlivable. Nothing was perfect, not really, but it didn’t mean that it wouldn’t be someday. It's funny, ironic, that Nines made him see that. 

 

Fucker hadn’t even done much, but Gavin was grateful. And maybe, when he could keep his eyes open and not pass out on the android, he’d tell him thank you. 

 

Just maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> you know how you get so damn mad that you suddenly find yourself crying??? 
> 
> if you don't know that feeling- sorry can't talk gotta blast.
> 
>  
> 
> but if you dO then please, isn't it just hell. like nO IM NOT SAD PLEASE DONT- NO I DONT NEED COMFORT,,,,M,,,m angry ma,,,,babe I am mad pls


End file.
